


Fallout Unsolved

by EnterintotheBandom



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Fallout (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fallout (Video Games) Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fallout Video Game References, Ghouls, Just so you aren't disappointed, Plot Twist You Can See Coming, Post-War, Pre-War, Reunions, Rick Francesca Banjo and C.C. aren't actually them they're just people named after them, The Hotdaga (Buzzfeed Unsolved), Unless You Know Nothing About Fallout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-09-01 17:31:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnterintotheBandom/pseuds/EnterintotheBandom
Summary: Ryan and Shane ran a prewar radio show before the bombs fell. Ryan ended up in a vault while Shane was left on the outside to die. Of course in one of Vault-Tec experiments, Ryan was put in suspended animation and made to believe he had been living a happy life in a world where the bombs never fell made from his own memories. Of course, he wakes up in the vault after 200 years. He discovers that someone is keeping the show alive…Basically Shane and Ryan (and Kelsey) in the Fallout universe.





	1. Waking Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I like both Fallout and Buzzfeed Unsolved (and Kelsey's 100 Baby challenge) so I decided to combine it all into a fun story! I know I usually do bandom stuff but I'm kinda falling out of love with the bandom in general.  
Also for the Flatwoods monster, I’m going off of the ‘Who Goes There?’ holotapes in Fallout 76 for the story and not the real one.

“Hello listeners and welcome back to Unsolved on Buzzcast. Today we look into the Flatwoods monster, a creature that is said to roam in West Virginia.” Ryan said into the microphone.

“The Flatwoods monster, don’t think I’ve heard of that one,” Shane said. They were kind of crammed in the recording booth, and both had to speak into the same microphone, but it wasn’t too bad, although the microphone was to Shane’s height instead of Ryan’s.

“Well, you probably aren’t going to like the theories about it.” 

“Don’t tell me it’s aliens.”

“I won’t.”

“You mot-.” Shane stopped as cursing was not allowed on air.

“The story goes that in 2052, a Pioneer Scout by the name of Fred Fisher was found wandering by a river in West Virginia…”

“What river?”

“The story didn’t say.”

“So they made up a story and didn’t bother to tell what river?”

“It’s assumed that it was Right Fork Saltlick River.” 

“Why didn’t you say that then?”

“I was just about to!” Ryan rolled his eyes before continuing the story.  
He had been dared to follow some weird noises by his scout troop, and followed it to an abandoned mine that apparently smelled like rotten eggs.”

“Probably from all the rotten eggs.”

“*Wheeze*  
He reportedly then saw a bright light shining down on him, and after trying to escape into the mine, he felt strange before blacking out. He then woke up in a dark place. However, he was not alone, as a little girl by the name of Sally was with him.”

“So it’s a fairytale about an alien that abducts kids.”

“That’s how the story goes.  
Sally asked if Fisher had gotten lost, and said that she had a similar experience to Fisher. She then said that they needed to stay put like her father used to say, and that they would be bringing him soon.”

“Oh, who’s they?”

“I’m getting to that.  
When asked, Sally said that ‘they’ were other people and would give her food if she did what they want, and they would do the same for Fisher. When pushed further, Sally said that they wanted to play games. The games apparently were boring and, quote, 'only hurt when they use the needles.'”

“Needles?”

“That’s how Fred reacted as well.  
Fisher told Sally that it didn’t sound like a fun game or any he had heard of. Fisher tried to leave, but Sally freaked out and told him to stay put. That was when a light came that blinded Fisher and Sally said it was how they brought food or came to play. That was when Fisher noticed that Sally had a helmet on that was apparently screwed into her head.”

“So she’s the Flatwoods Monster?”

“No, Sally’s not the monster. I’m getting to the monster.  
She then started to repeat ‘time to play’. Fisher then saw the people Sally was talking about. Fisher describes the monsters as floating creatures with no legs, purple fish bowl-like helmets, glowing eyes, cowls, with long arms that had exposed greyish skin. It apparently had rockets on their lower body which helped it float. Fisher said his memory only comes back when he was in the hospital. He sustained no injuries other than two small wounds on each temple. To this day, Fisher still searches for Sally. Now there are three theories to what may have happened.”

“Well let’s hear them.”

“The first one is that the story was the result of the mine’s smell, as it is possible that the rotten egg smell was a hallucinogen and he hallucinated the entire encounter.”

“The most plausible answer.” 

“This explains why he was found in a daze, that being said, it does not explain how he got the injuries.”

“He was a kid! Kids fall down all the time, he probably fell on sticks or something.”

“That is how it is explained away usually, but the injuries were exactly the same on each side of his head, which seems to disprove the falling down theory  
The second theory is that Fisher made it up completely. This was proposed by a scout mate named Jackson Parker. He claimed that Fisher was always making up tall tails, and ran off to have another story to tell, and got lost, which was why he didn’t come back to tell the story. However, Fisher’s parents and the scout leader said that Fisher would never leave trails and the story was repeated the same way too many times to be something he had made up, and the injuries seemed like going too far for a kid. He also still searches for Sally, which seems like going too far for something you made up as a kid.”

“Less plausible but I can imagine a kid making all of this up for attention. And hey, kids are crazy! I once used the saw off of a Mr. Handy Unit to carve my name into a wall and dropped it into my foot.”

“Of course you did.” 

“Hey! I was 11 and my friend had brought the pieces to school! I thought it would be a good idea at the time. The scar on my foot reminded me for the rest of school not to do that again!” 

“On to the last theory. The last one is that Fisher did not hallucinate and did not make the story up.”

“Oh come on! The other two were more plausible than this one!”

“The proof of this is his determination to find Sally, his loss of a few days, the dazed state he was found in, and his injuries. He was also not showing any signs of dehydration or starvation.” 

“I’d assume if you’re losing your mind you’ll drink or eat anything. He probably ate birds and drank out of the river.” 

“Oh like you ate that parrot?”

“Stop bringing up my parrot!”

Ryan laughed and then they finished out the episode. 

“Finally, we’re out of that room,” Shane said after they left the recording room. “I need a smoke break.”

“I thought you stopped smoking.” 

“I did, I just have to say that or I don’t get an actual break,” Shane muttered so the others in the room couldn’t hear. “I just need to get a Nuka-Cola from the machine across the street. I can’t wait till they release Quantum, and I’m kind of hoping they release it early and I get my hands on one soon.”

“Ah…” Ryan said. Nuka-Cola Quantum was set to be released on the 23rd of October, which was just around the corner, and Shane, being an avid drinker, was dead set on getting it the day it came out, much like everyone else who was excited for its release.

“We’re still getting together to try it for the first time right?” Shane asked.

“Hell yeah, I want to see you gag, I mean if it glows it’s gotta taste like chemicals right?” Ryan asked.

“Ha, it probably will,” Shane said. “Still, I want to have someone with me to try it.” 

Ryan chuckled a bit, and Shane left the room to go on the break.

Suddenly, Ryan was blinded by something, and suddenly he found himself stuck in a tube of some sort. The glass above him was super foggy. When he went to pound on the glass, he noticed he was in a vault suit, like the ones he had been shown when he went to a meeting about getting a place in the vault. The vault… He had been accepted into Vault 61 about a month before…

The memories suddenly came back. The sirens went off when Ryan had left his house to drive to Shane’s, and he managed to get to the vault before the bombs fell, and then the employees had brought them to the chambers, had them put on their suits and get into the chambers, and said they would just be decompressed before going deeper into the vault.

Ryan started screaming before what looked like more vault residents came and let him out. 

“What the fuck?!” Ryan said as the two residents helped him.

“I don’t know, we just woke up too!” One of the residents said.

Ryan looks back at the chambers and noticed that in the three next to his were skeletons in vault suits.

“Oh my god!” Ryan said.

One of the residents began fiddling with her Pip-Boy.

“According to my Pip-Boy it’s, oh god, it’s 2281…” 

Ryan and the other resident looked at her like she was crazy, but when she showed them, it showed she wasn’t lying.

“What did they do to us?” The other resident asked.

They began to search around the vault and found 3 other survivors until they made it into the overseer’s office, where they found 5 other survivors and the overseer tied to her chair. One resident had a gun on her.

“What did you do!” One of the residents yelled at the overseer.

“I did what Vault-Tec told me to do! They said I needed to get all of you in the chambers and get in one myself, I have no idea this was going to happen!” The overseer said.

“Bullshit! You were told all about it in your fucking terminal! It said that you would wake up in 2192 and the other employees and you would leave and report to vault tec! And it said everyone would be released in 2192 to, and I quote, be let out to die! It told you that we were going to be stuck in a memory loop and released to find fake skeletons and made to believe the bomb killed everyone!” The resident said.

“Fine! I knew! Why do you think Vault-Tec would bring all you lowlifes in here?! There was a malfunction and we’re the only ones who survived until the failsafe finally activated.” The overseer said. 

The remaining dwellers looked at each other.

“What do we do with her?” One resident said.

“Kill her.” Another said.

“Bridget! We can’t just kill her!” A third said.

“She basically killed everyone else Emma!” Bridget said.

“We’ll take a vote. Who wants me to put a bullet in her skull?” The resident with the gun asked.

Three dwellers including Bridget raised their hands.

“That’s 4 including me against 7.” The gunman said.

The overseer sighed with relief. 

“Who wants to leave her tied up here?!” The gunman said.

Everyone, including the people who wanted to kill her, raised their hands. Ryan didn’t like the thought, but the third option was releasing her and there was no way Ryan was going to do that.

“Alright, she’s staying here.”

“What?!” She said.

“Shut up! This is your punishment.” The gunman said. 

The residents then looted the room and everyone left the overseer’s office and they went down to the cafeteria. 

That’s when everyone broke down. Ryan found himself crying on the gunman’s shoulder as he told him about his family and his friends. It had just hit him that everyone he had ever known was dead, and it was quite possible that Shane died waiting for Ryan to come so they could try Quantum. Shane didn’t get to try Quantum like he wanted to.

Everyone just cried until everyone was calm and they exchanged names and what they were good at to figure out what they could do next. The gunman, who was a man named Jacob, and was Bridget and Emma’s older half brother (they were the only people with a prior history) said they would need to leave the vault. They had found enough guns for everyone, and due to the fact there was no food left (the skeletons of the employees showed that they ate everything and starved to death unless something else happened) 

They packed up all they could find and left the vault to find the destroyed wastes. The first thing Ryan did was check for radio signals on the Pip-Boy he looted.

“Guys, there are 3 radio signals, a classical music station I recognize from before the war, a signal that is just playing music, and one coming from the Buzzcast radio signal.” 

“Check the Buzzcast one, that was supposed to have been shut off the day of the bombs.” A resident, Kelsey, said. She had been another Buzzcast employee, but she had worked at a different section on a different show, so neither of them had met the other, but they had heard of each other.

Ryan turned it on to find it was halfway through one of the Unsolved episodes, talking about the Grandchester Mystery Mansion in Nuka-World that was supposedly actually haunted. 

“Someone’s definitely been playing through the episodes of Unsolved at the least, I’m surprised anyone would care with how long it’s been,” Ryan said.

“So there must be people there.” Alexander, another resident said.

“We should see if there’s anything else…” Jacob said.

The residents agreed and they sat around Ryan and listened to the episode until it finished out. Then there was a raspy voice.

“That was the Grandchester Mystery House episode, haven’t heard that one in about 27 years, cause that’s how long it took the people here to track it down after my assistant ran off with it and other holotapes. It was under the mattress that they found him dead on! Anyway, we have the daily message for any listeners outside of Buzz-City, this is a safe haven for ghouls, synths, and people alike. We promise not to discriminate.” The voice said before giving coordinates to where they were, and when one person plugged it into their Pip-Boy and found it was the same location as the Buzzcast building had been before the war.

“What are ghouls?” Bridget asked.

“What are synths?” A resident, Maurice, asked.

“No idea, but I have a feeling we’ll find out,” Jacob said before standing up. “No time to waste, let’s leave this horrid place behind us.”

Ryan left the radio station on to listen to the episodes to remember his coworkers and friends, as whoever was playing the station was playing miscellaneous episodes from different Buzzcast shows.

The group traveled for a long time before the sunset, and they discovered an abandoned camp. They decided to stay there for the night, alternating between 3 guards each 2 hours. Ryan didn’t have first shift so laid down and eventually fell asleep.

He woke up to gunshots, and by the time he was fully awake, he was being dragged away from the ratty mattress he had been sharing with Julio, another man from the vault.

He was thrown to the ground next to Kelsey, who had been tied up, and Ryan was tied up as well.

“How much you think we’ll get for vault dwellers?” One female voice asked. 

“Alone? Not much, but for all 11, a hell of a lot.” Another female voice, this one was raspy, asked.

“We could change them out of the suits, we’ll get more if they think they aren’t dwellers.” A male voice said before Sergio, another vault resident, was thrown down on the other side of Ryan and one of the women began to tie him up.

“Good idea, by the time they start believing these are dwellers we’ll be long gone.” A third female voice said.

“I bet the boss will be happy with these new slaves either way. They aren’t like those dwellers from 74, they didn’t last a week.” A raspy male voice said.

“You hear that you filthy vault dwellers? Your vault can’t protect you now! Welcome to the wasteland, you better hope you survive the next week!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it!


	2. Unfamiliar Faces, Familiar Names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being captured by raiders, the vault residents are rescued by some unfamiliar faces with familiar names

Ryan remembered the random feelings of deja vu from being stuck in the memory loops. The earliest memory was of him finishing high school, and the latest had to have been when they were doing the Mothman episode on air, which had been two days before the bombs dropped. Shane was, of course, convinced it was all bullshit, but of course Shane did. He only believed in Bigfoot for some reason. Probably because he was one of them. That had to have been an 11 year loop he was stuck in, give or take. The idea he spent all the time from the day the bombs fell to now in the same 11 year loop scared him. What scared him more however was being tied up on the ground listening to raiders discuss the possibility of keeping one of the vault residents as a slave or something.

It seemed to be ages before the raiders finally tried to do something with them. A very sick and messed up looking two headed cow came into Ryan’s vision, being led by a man. Ryan bit his tongue to avoid screaming ‘what the fuck is wrong with that thing?’ It just looked disgusting.

“About time you showed up.” The leader of the pack, which was the third woman, said. 

The man didn’t speak, only nodded. Ryan noticed that the man had a gas mask on from what little he could see.

“Molerat got your tongue?” The leader asked, before the sound of a sniper rifle (Ryan had used a similar sound effect when he was helping with a different radio show) startled her, and the gas mask guy suddenly drew a pistol and shot her in the face. Ryan didn’t have a good view, but he heard more shots, and one of the raiders fell in front of him. He noticed how that the raider looked like her skin had been extremely burned, she was missing her nose, and her eyes were black. It was horrifying, but it obviously wasn’t caused by the gun. Was this what radiation did to people?

After a few minutes, the shots stopped and four people grouped up.

“Nice work Ricky, we finally got these assholes!” A female voice said. “Hopefully it’ll send the message this time.”

The gas-mask man knelt down and put a card in one of the raider’s pockets, to the protest of the others.

“Come on, calling cards? No one sees those things anyway.” A male voice said.

“Let’s release the vault dwellers instead of fighting alright guys?” A different female voice said. The group then got to releasing everyone.

Ryan was released by the gas-mask man.

“Vault 61 aye? Didn’t realize that one was ever meant to open. The radio man has talked about it before.” The man said, removing the gas mask. He looked worn out, and from everyone else, who had not been wearing masks, these people were likely family. They also didn’t look like the female raider that had landed in front of Ryan, so he figured that not everyone in the wastes looked like that.

“We just got out yesterday, we were like frozen or something,” Ryan said.

“So you all are pre-war? Damn.” The other man said.

“Well, where are you all heading?” Gas-mask man said.

“Buzz-City, we heard about it on the radio,” Kelsey said.

“Oh, we’re from there, we can lead you. I’m Ricky Goldsworth. My mom liked that one show that plays on the radio a lot.” 

Ryan had to stop himself from laughing. The name that Shane had made for Ryan had become this poor sucker’s real name. 

“She liked it a fucking lot.” One of the women said. “I’m Francesca Norris, he’s Banjo McClintock and she’s C.C. Tinsley. Mind that we have an actual last name after those names, those are our first names.”

“Wow, your mom really didn’t know how to name kids,” Ryan said, laughing.

“You’re telling me.” Banjo McClintock said.

“Just call us by the first name,” C.C. said.

“Alright.”

“Now follow us,” Ricky said. “To Buzz-City we go!”

Kelsey fell back as the group headed out. The cow thing was left behind, which Ryan was kind of happy about because he didn’t want to see that anymore.

“You going to tell them it’s your stupid show that they’re named after?” Kelsey said to him, and Ryan elbowed her.

“Of course not, they probably won’t believe me,” Ryan said before turning on the Buzzcast radio to look out for any other messages about Buzz-City.

He tuned in to hear “Oh Dan, and Sweet Brandon!” and he instantly turned it off.

“What?” Kelsey asked.

“They found the fucking Hot Daga…” Ryan said. Ryan recognized the stupid voice Shane made.

“The what?!” Kelsey asked.

“Remember when we would answer questions for Unsolved and air that like a week or so after the main show? Well, Shane started telling a stupid story at the end of each recording. I managed to convince him to let me cut it out of broadcasts, and I put each episode on their own holotapes for Shane to do with what he wished. I worked my ass off to make sure it never made it to air and whoever’s in the radio office is playing what I spent a couple years of my life trying to hide from our listeners!” 

“Oh come on it can’t be that bad.”

“I can tell you and Shane never met. The Hot Daga was the most annoying thing known to man and I have a feeling if I let him release it on Buzzcast the bombs would have dropped a hell of a lot earlier then they did.”

“Oh wow,” Kelsey said before she started laughing. Ryan rolled his eyes.

“Trust me, nothing is as bad as the Hot Daga.”

“Not even the adventures of Chelsea and her 32 children?” Kelsey asked. She had told a lot of stories on her show, and the one she had been working on up until the bombs was the story of Chelsea, her 32 kids, and her endless pursuit of Craig. They had to hire more actors for that show because of all the characters, which was rare for them.

“That was good because it had interesting characters and I actually cared about the relationships. I was actually invested when that one set of twins ran off to join a vampire cult despite how stupid that sounds. (That got a ‘Hey!’ from Kelsey) The Hot Daga was so annoying I couldn’t get invested.”

“Because it was bad or because you were trapped in the room with Shane when he was recording it?”

Ryan glared at her as she laughed, but ended up laughing too before he was reminded that Shane was long dead and that he’d never be in that situation again, which made him sad.

“Hey chin up,” Kelsey said when she noticed. Before Ryan could speak, C.C. yelled.

“Everyone! Guns drawn! This area’s known for feral ghouls.” 

“What are ghouls?” Someone at the front asked.

“People who have been exposed to too much radiation and turned into, well, ghouls. Some of them don’t retain their old memories and turn feral, and they’ll kill anything that moves. Be on the look out.” Banjo said. “Hopefully you won’t have to run into anything else before we hit Buzz-City. There are things worse than ghouls in these wastes.”

“Before we head further, anything else anyone wants to ask?” Ricky asked.

“Do you have food?” Gretchen, another vault resident, asked.

“Yes, give me a second. You guys aren’t getting much though, our supplies were only meant for four people.” 

Chunks of cooked meat and mutated tomatoes were passed around and everyone sat to eat.

“Probably not as good as whatever prewar food you guys were eating but it will fill you,” C.C. said as she sat with Ryan and Kelsey, who were both just looking at what they had. Ryan took the first bite of the meat and, while it sure as hell didn’t taste good, it wasn’t so bad that he would have spat it out. Kelsey decided to try it as well and had a similar reaction.

“What is this?” Kelsey asked.

“Mutt chops,” C.C. said.

Kesley and Ryan both exchanged disgusted looks, but due to the fact they were still hungry, they ended up eating the meat and the tomato. 

“I would kill for some Dandy Boy Apples…” Ryan muttered.

“Oh I’ve had those! Little to irradiated for my taste.” C. C. said.

“Oh my god I regret ever eating those things…” Kesley said, putting her head in her hands.

“You read the slogan “So Good They Never Go Bad” and didn’t know what you were getting into?” Ryan said. Kelsey glared at him.

The whole group finished their food and Ricky began leading everyone through where the ghouls were. They were passing through a small town. Ryan pretty quickly realized it was his town. It was close enough that he made the drive to the vault in the 5 minute window between the sirens and the bombs dropping, although he had been speeding. A few others began talking about how this was their home as well.

“Well be ready to meet some of your neighbors,” Ricky said after someone mentioned it to him.

As they were walking, Ryan noticed an old baseball helmet on the ground, and he picked it up as he walked past.

Kelsey and Emma both looked back to see Ryan was wearing it and almost broke the silence. Ryan ended up miming that if someone shot at his head, he would be fine. This was probably bullshit, but Ryan had thought dumber things.

They continued before Ricky stopped the group.

“Ghouls.” He muttered to the people in the front, who relayed it to everyone in the back. 

The group went from a line to a bunch, each of the siblings telling the vault residents the plan, which was for Ricky to start firing, and everyone needed to watch for more ghouls from all around.

Ricky fired, and then the residents on his side did the same.

This was a mistake as this caused a total of 30 ghouls to surround the group.

“Alright dwellers, get ready for the fight of your lives!” Banjo shouted before taking the machete off his hip to attack one of the ghouls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to make a comment about the Bigfoot episode when Ryan put on the helmet, but in the context of the show in the Fallout universe, they wouldn't have gone on their Bigfoot hunt, so I had to change that.


	3. Sergio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone runs off during the Ghoul fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm close to finishing the story in docs so hopefully this story gets a regular release date when I do that!

Ryan’s last memory in the memory loop was a pretty long one, but that may also have been because it had been so soon they had a lot more to go off of. Ryan assumed they picked ones from adulthood because it would seem more fluid to go from adult to slightly younger adult rather than adult to child at the end of each loop. But his last memory focused a lot of being in the recording booth with Shane, then talking to his boss about possibly doing some voices for another show as they had run out of voice actors at that point, then he met up with Shane outside, who had some questions about the vault program. He said he heard there were open spots in Vault 74 and he might try and sign up for it. Shane never ended up doing that. If he sent an application it probably never made it to Vault Tec and whoever else was dealing with Vault 74 before the bombs dropped. It took Ryan a month for Vault Tec to get back to him about Vault 61. But at this point? Ryan almost preferred the memory cryotube hell to what was once the town he lived in.

The vault residents were not ready for how the ghouls attacked. Emma was taken down by a ghoul rushing straight at her, but Ryan managed to shoot the Ghoul off of her.

“Oh no oh no!” Kelsey said as she realized she used all her bullets on one ghoul that didn’t even die. 

Ryan tried to cover her while she reloaded, and they only avoided being overwhelmed when Ricky jumped out of nowhere and stabbed one of the ghouls through the head, giving Kelsey enough time to finish reloading.

“Get back here Dweller!” Banjo yelled at one of the residents, who just dropped his gun and ran.

Ryan got one of the ghouls in the head, and Kelsey got another. It felt so weird, cause Ryan expected killing someone to fuck with him more than this, but these weren’t people anymore, and somehow, he felt like killing these feral ghouls was doing them a favor. 

It took a while, but pretty soon all the ghouls were dead. The group managed to sustain minor injuries, but it was nothing a Stimpak couldn’t fix.

“Who was that that just ran off?” Banjo asked the other vault residents.

“I think his name was Sergio.” Alexander said.

“Ricky, I’ll take Francesca and a few of these guys to look for him. Don’t expect him to turn up alive though. C.C., check out the injured one.” Banjo pointed at Emma, whose leg was crippled due to the ghoul pouncing on her. 

“I’ll go.” Ryan said.

“I’ll come too.” Jacob said. “Stay with Emma, Bridget.”

Bridget was already knelt down next to Emma, and she nodded to her brother.

“Come on.” Banjo said. “Before he gets too far away.”

Banjo and Francesca lead Ryan and Jacob through the ruined houses to look for Sergio. They were all pretty silent, but Banjo started a conversation.

“Hey, be on the lookout for any Nuka-Cola, alright?” 

“Why?” Jacob asked.

“The guy on the Buzz-City radio is like addicted to the stuff and he pays a pretty cap for any you get him. And he wants any of it. Regular, Quantum, Quartz, Victory, Dark, Grape, Orange, Cherry, Wild, you find it, he’ll pay you for it. Although I don’t think he actually drinks Quantum, he has a shelf full of them. Well I don’t blame him, I drank it once and my piss was glowing for like a week.”

Ryan thought about how he told Shane that Quantum was probably full of chemicals that would taste bad, but glowing urine wasn’t what he thought might happen. Maybe it was a good thing Shane never got to try it.

“Your pee glowed? Man I’m kind of glad I missed out on my chance to try it.” Jacob said.

“Me too.” Ryan said.

“Taste wise it was pretty good.” Banjo said while shrugging his shoulders.

“Says the man who eats Radroach meat and enjoys it.” Francesca said, and Ryan could almost hear the eye roll.

Jacob and Ryan both looked at each other, then shrugged.

“If we keep the noise up it’ll bring the ghouls out of hiding, so they don’t ambush us when we’re right on them, and might bring Sergio to us.” Banjo followed this up by yelling for Sergio.

Ryan turned the radio back on, and it was no longer playing the Hot Daga but was near the end of an episode of a show Ryan didn’t recognize, but he knew one of the voices as a coworker, so it was still an old Buzz-Cast show.

“Splendid, that’ll work perfect.” Banjo said before continuing to call for Sergio, which caused the other two men to do the same.

On the radio the episode ended, and the radio host with the raspy voice started talking about how, while yes that episode was a two parter, the other one had been lost when the bombs dropped unless someone had a holotape with the other episode on it. He then began to describe the episode, claiming he had to sit in an editing room and listen to the episodes about 6 times. Ryan was confused by that.

“Hey how does the radio guy know what the episode was if they were destroyed when the bombs dropped?” Ryan asked. Ryan remembered listening to that episode when it came out and this guy was hitting all the plot points.

“Oh, that’s guy’s a prewar ghoul. He actually has run that station since Buzz-City became Buzz-City. I don’t know the full story, mostly because he doesn’t like telling stories about himself before the war unless it relates to one of the shows’ recordings or conceptions.” 

“So he didn’t go feral after the bombs?”

“Yeah, some ghouls go feral instantly, sometimes after a couple of years, and some just haven’t gone feral yet.” Francesca said.

Banjo looked back at Ryan like he just realized something.

“You know, your voice is really familiar.” He said. “Oh, nice helmet.” 

Before Ryan could reply, Jacob gasped, and Ryan and Banjo looked over to where Jacob was looking.

“Poor bastard.” Francesca said.

There was Sergio, or what was left of him. Looked like the ghouls overwhelmed him and tore him apart.

“Oh god…” Ryan said.

“Well, we should head back and tell the crew.” Banjo said, shaking his head.

“Shouldn’t we like, bury him or something?” Ryan asked.

“Listen…” Francesca was probably trying to remember the name Ryan never gave him.

“Ryan.” 

“Listen Ryan, I know you’re still working off prewar logic or whatever, but if we take time to bury him, we’re probably going to end up dead too. He shouldn’t have run off and he payed the price. We don’t need any more dead on this journey. You can set up a memorial or something, but at least we found his body. Most people disappear into the wastes and are never seen again, and their bodies are rarely found. Don’t end up like them. We got lucky the ghouls moved on and didn't stay here.” 

Jacob, while Francesca spoke, went to Sergio’s body, took some mutant flowers off the very messed up plant that was growing out of the sidewalk, and put it on Sergio’s body.

“This will be enough.” Jacob said before coming back over to the two. “Let’s go.”

The group returned to the rest of the group with the bad news. Despite the fact he was dead, no one really got emotional over him. Ryan felt bad about it, but none of them really knew Sergio. He had just been one of the guys holding up the Overseer back in the vault. Ryan would probably feel more emotional if it were Tara or Maurice, who had been the two to get him out of the cryotube when they all woke up, or Kelsey, since they had actually become friends since they started the journey. 

So they moved on, stopping on the edge of town, and after the siblings searched the nearby area, they decided to rest. Ryan and Kelsey sat together, turning the radio on since Ryan had to turn it off before they continued from where the ghouls attacked him.

“And now it’s time for the daily question. Today we have one from a boy named Robert. He asks ‘what happened to the people in the shows after the bombs fell?’ I haven’t had this one in a couple decades, so I’ll answer it again. Most died in the initial explosion, some survived either by getting into one of the three vaults in the area or just being lucky, and finally, a sound editor, one of our secretaries, and I got turned into ghouls. Sound editor is one of our weapon vendors if you want to go see her while the secretary got killed by Super Mutants during the attack 12 years ago.” The host said. “Up next we have ‘The Adventures of Chelsea and her 32 children, Brielle robs the art gallery.’ I never met Kelsey, who created the show and did the voices of Chelsea, Brielle, Olive and Niya, but I heard that she was a very nice person who was fun to be around.” The host said before the episode began. 

“Aww, how nice.” Kelsey said.

“That is what I heard. Didn’t I work on one episode?” Ryan asked.

“Uhh, didn’t you voice Kade, Bran’s father?” Kelsey asked after thinking for a bit.

“Oh yeah, in the episode where the aliens come to earth and Chelsea and Kade have an awkward reunion and Kade finally meets Bran.” Ryan said. He remembered doing the weird alien voice, so did it again. “I am here to see my son.” 

Kelsey and Ryan both laughed. 

“Man, I don’t think we actually talked to each other when we were recording that.” Kelsey said. “It’s a shame.”

“Yeah, but if you did you would have had to meet and deal with Shane, so it might have been a good thing.”

“Was he really that bad?” 

“Not really, we just would tell everyone we met that the other was insufferable. No doubt that if Shane were in my place he would be telling you I was super annoying.” 

“I wish I could have met him.” 

The episode suddenly came to a holt as the frantic host started speaking again.

“I’m sorry to interrupt this episode but there are raiders inside the walls, they’re inside the walls! This is a distress call, anyone nearby who can help, please get over here! I’m going to put this on repeat until I get more information!” 

And the message began to repeat.


	4. Sewers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group need to get to Buzz-City and fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long, I've had a bit of writer's block and forgot to update. So here's chapter 4

When Kesley woke up, she was in a section of the vault where everyone else was dead, so she was stuck screaming and pounding on the tube for almost an hour before Ryan, Maurice, Gretchen, Tara and Julio found her. Kelsey had been stuck reliving the previous 13 years of her life, and had been in the middle of recording her voice for the 17th episode of The Adventures of Chelsea and her 32 kids when she woke up. She was in such a panic that she punched Julio in the face when he tried to help her out, but once the group calmed her down, she was just confused. She of course got her answer from the Overseer, but she was still left confused with Vault Tec’s reason for what they had done. Now she only had one hope of a normal(ish) life now, and it was now being attacked by raiders.

“Ricky!” Ryan said after he and Kelsey stared at each other.

Ricky came over and listened to the message.

“Fuck…” Ricky said. 

“We’re going to help them right?” Kelsey asked.

“Of course we are. That’s my home town they’re messing with.” Ricky sighed. “Although this is probably my fault for going after Blade’s guys.

“Blade?”

“That’s what she’s called. She’s the biggest raider leader this side of Nuka-World. She’s probably going through that place looking for me, and if it’s me she wants, it’s safe to assume she’s going to take everyone prisoner, unless they fight back. The host should be safe, the dwellers from 74 are still too weak to do anything so they’ll just be prisoners, Blade doesn’t kill kids, so any kids should be okay…”

“Ricky, that doesn’t matter right now.” Banjo said, having heard everything. “We need to get to Buzz-City and fast.”

“The fasted way is through that Super Mutant infestation, so we are not going through there. Second fastest is through the sewers, and we’ll get there a lot faster than if we keep going this way, but…”

“But what?” Kelsey asked.

“That place is crawling with bugs and ghouls, and there’s rumors of a Deathclaw.”

“A what?”

“A nasty beast, not as common as radroaches or molerats but a hell of a lot more annoying, for the 7 seconds you deal with it until your dead, unless you’re lucky.” Banjo said. “I managed to run away from one after getting separated from my team when I started off as a scavenger for Buzz-City as a teen.”

“I don’t think he left the house for a week after that.” Ricky said. “We’ll be lucky if we make it past it if it gets in our way.” 

“This does not sound like a good idea, but what’s the time difference?” Ryan asked.

“Well, sewers take about 5 hours, walking to Buzz-City will take another day and a half. Terrain is crazy and we have to make a detour due to the Super Mutants.” 

“Sewers it is then.” Ryan said.

“Alright.” Ricky said before standing up. “Alright everyone, change of plans, the sewers here will get us to the outside of the ruins around Buzz-City in 5 hours. It’s going to be nasty down there, but Buzz-City is under attack and we need to get there to help quickly. There’s just bugs down there and a collapsed subway station where the tunnels connect. If we go that way however we’ll run into bugs and possibly a very nasty beast, but if we keep heading this way, it will take another day and a half to make it. Who wants to take this short cut?” 

The vault residents all looked at each other, and everyone but Alexander and Tara raised their hands.

“I’ve been through there a hundred times, it won’t be as bad as it was before the war, not as much sewery stuff, but there’ll be nasty critters and possibly some crazies, so everyone be vigilant.” C.C. said as she stood up as well. 

“You guys have 10 more minutes to rest up until we head out.” Ricky said. 

Ricky walked over to where Fancesca was and Banjo sat with Kelsey and Ryan.

“What are super mutants?” Kelsey asked.

“Big mutants, they don’t look like ghouls, I think they were mutated by something else. The area we were going through is the source of them, but we don’t know what’s there. Old maps put a ‘West Tek’ research facility and Vault 5 is there, but no one knows if that’s where they’re coming from for sure.” Banjo said. “Whatever it is, hopefully someone goes in there and destroys it.”

“West Tek, those guys always seemed fishy to me…” Ryan said.

“Wasn’t there a conspiracy going around that they were behind an illness outbreak in a town in West Virginia?” Kelsey asked.

“Oh yeah, I remember that.”

“West Virginia?” Banjo asked. “Man old world names for places were horrible. Was there an East Virginia?” 

“Not really…”

“Then why call it that?”

“Well there’s a whole backstory to why it was called that if you want to hear it.” 

“No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” 

Kelsey laughed at that.

“So, how are you two feeling? I know getting thrown into the wastes can be confusing, I mean the guys from 74 were traumatized by the wasteland before they were found by some of our scavengers, although you’ve never seen that many people overjoyed to eat dog food and molerat chunks.”

“Well, I feel traumatized.” Kelsey said. “I killed a man.”

“Feral ghouls don’t count, they’re mindless. They would have killed you first. But you’ll have to kill people out here, but only in the ‘if I don’t kill you you’ll kill me’ way.”

“Oh, yeah…” Ryan and Kelsey both seemed to realize this.

“But don’t worry, once Buzz-City’s clear, you probably won’t have to kill anyone again.”

“Good.” Kelsey said. “I’m a radio star not a murderer.”

“I actually feel better about myself, hell, I think I could take a demon now!” Ryan said. 

“That’s the spirit.” Banjo laughed and patted Ryan hard on the back.

“Alright everyone! Ten minutes are up! Let’s go!” Ricky yelled, and everyone stood up to go.

Ryan looked around as he stretched a little to keep himself from cramping, and just in time to see a small Radroach come scurrying to attack them. He shrieked and tried to run. Banjo barely blank as he shot it with his pipe gun. Kelsey began laughing at Ryan.

“Now you want to take on that demon?” She asked as Ryan covered his face in shame.

“It was a Radroach, that thing was a baby.” Banjo said, laughing as well.

“Roaches were a lot smaller than that in my day…” Ryan muttered.

“Don’t be surprised, a lot of things are bigger now.” Banjo laughed. “Come on vault dwellers, let’s go.”

Ricky lead the group to a sewer cover, having to use a crowbar to pry it open.

“Alright, we’re going to all go together. Follow the leader, do not get separated. This place is a death trap, and if you stick back or part from the group, you die, got it?” Ricky asked as Francesca went down into the sewer.

The dwellers all confirmed that they got it. 

“Alright, we’re going to go in a specific order. There are 10 of you and 4 of us. Four of you go first, then Banjo goes, then three of you, then C.C., then three more, and then me. Got it?”

The dwellers confirmed again.

Gretchen, Alexander, Julio and Maurice went first, and then after Banjo, Jacob, Bridget and Emma, and then after C.C., Ricky, Kelsey and Tara.

The sewer was empty, other than rainwater, it still didn’t smell great, but it wasn’t as disgusting as it probably was prewar. That was a relief. The sewer was dark save for a few prewar lights that still worked, and the light of the dwellers’ Pip-Boys.

Ricky stayed close behind the trio, gun drawn and checking each nook and cranny as they passed.

They passed the collapsed subway station, and heard the sounds of a Protectron moving about on the other side of the rubble that separated the sewer from the rest of the subway.

“Those still work after this long?” Tara asked Ricky.

“Yeah. A lot of the time we have to kill the law enforcement ones, but if you get to a terminal before someone else does, you can put them on your side.”

“Damn. I worked on some of those for a living, I’m really surprised they survived the drop.”

Gun shots came from the front of the line, and everyone drew their guns.

“Molerats.” C.C. said. 

“Hate those things.” Ricky said.

As they went further, Ryan got to see the molerats, which looked disgusting, and made Ryan’s skin crawl. He was not a fan of what nuclear bomb levels of radiation did to things.

“Man I hope Shane didn’t have to deal with any of this shit if he survived the drop…” Ryan muttered, and Kelsey patted his back, as she knew Ryan would probably make himself sad again. It helped a little, but Ryan did end up making himself sad again.

“Hey, not saying you need to stop thinking about him, but it was years and years ago, and I’m sure Shane went peacefully.” Kelsey said. 

Ryan sighed. 

“I just wish he had sent in his application earlier. He waited till the 21st. So I don’t even think his application made it to Vault Tec before the bombs dropped.” 

“I thought Vault 61 hit max capacity a month before the drop.” 

“He applied for 74.” 

“74? He wouldn’t have lasted any longer than he would have in the wastes.” Ricky said, he had just overhead the last bit.

“Why?” Kelsey asked.

“Those people had only water and bread in there, no meat, no vegetables, nothing. Those people were so malnourished it was a surprise they made it outside of the vault for as long as they did, they still haven’t fully recovered and it’s been nearly a year. They had a long history of people literally dying from malnourishment, and they said they were surprised that they all didn’t die, but something in the med wing would help with that.” 

“Jesus Christ…” Ryan said. 

“Vault Tec was sick…” Kelsey said

“You’re telling me.” Ricky said. “How did you guys let them get away with that?” 

“We weren’t exactly shown the vault before we all rushed in to get away from the nuclear bombs.” Ryan said. “If I had been I would have prefered cramming myself into my cellar and drinking myself to death before the radiation poisoning killed me.”

“At this point, I’d agree.” Tara butted in.

The line suddenly stopped, and a whisper made its way to C.C., who relayed it to the last ones.

“This is the area with the Deathclaw, so everyone’s got to be very sneaking and silent. If it is down here, we don’t want to make it angry.” C.C. said before crouching. 

They continued on, low to the ground and silent for a long time. There was no sign of the Deathclaw, but every once in a while they passed evidence that one was around. Claw-marks on the wall, random bodies that had been torn apart, it was horrible. Ryan heard someone gag, but no one ended up throwing up, which was good because they wouldn’t have to be stepping through or over that. 

The group got extremely lucky as they continued their journey through sewers, as they passed through the Deathclaw lair with no problems. It was probably out and about. They however snuck for an hour after they got away from the lair, before Francesca stood and announced it was all clear and they would walk again.

Everything surprisingly continuing smoothy, save for the occasional radroach or molerat popping out of rubble or from under something. They also found dead ghouls, although it seemed like their brains had finally rotted out.

“Some of these ferals have been down here since before the war. I assume they entered the sewer to seek shelter from the bombs.” C.C. said.

“Or they left Vault 5, I’ve run into one or two with vault suits, along with skeletons.” Ricky said. “No one knows exactly what happened in Vault 5, but because of the Super Mutants we can only assume they were either killed by them or it’s still sealed up.”

“Vault dwellers don’t tend to last on the surface.”

“We got lucky then.” Ryan said.

“Considering you were all about to be sold into slavery when we came across you, yes. Yes you were.”

It took a while, but eventually, they hit a subway station entrance, which had been connected to the sewer by a huge hole. Kelsey recognized the subway station, and it seemed a few others did as well.

“Oh gross! I knew the sewer was close to this one.” Kelsey said as they went into the subway station.

“Makes me glad I never used the subway.” Ryan said.

“Alright, we should be on the outskirts of the ruins around Buzz-City. We should only stop if it’s something important. We need to get in quickly. This area is usually full of raiders, but chances are they’re attacking the city right now.” Ricky said after getting up on a bench to talk to everyone.

Ryan turned the radio on to check, and the host was in the middle of making an announcement. The whole group put their attention on them

“-the fifth floor, I still don’t know if they’re killing people or taking prisoners, but I think they’re getti-” The sound of the door being kicked open cut the host off. “Shit.” 

Gunshots were heard, and then the microphone was harshly tapped on.

“About time I shut this guy up right? Don’t worry he’s not dead, he’ll get a nice lump on his ugly zombie head. Now, why am I here, why am I here… Oh yeah! I want Ricky Goldsworth as he calls himself to come forward and face me. You’ve been killing my men for years now, about time you came and fought me head on, coward.” 

“Blade…” Ricky muttered angrily. 

“As for the rest of Ricky’s crew, if I see one of you with him, I’ll shoot the host before you can speak. Anyone else is welcome though!” Blade said. 

“Turn it off, she’ll just be taunting us.” Banjo said, and Ryan did so.

“Alright everyone, anyone have anything to declare before we go out there? Want to stick back and be the medic or help people who were captured?” Ricky asked. “Cause I want you to tell me now instead of running when the battle starts like that guy back in the ghoul neighborhood.”

No one had anything to say, and Ricky lead them out of the subway.

The city was a wreck, but that was to be expected. Ryan recognized the neighborhood, and it hit Ryan that this was Shane’s neighborhood. Infact, his house was just across the street. Ryan instantly began trying to think of a reason to get Ricky to let him go there, and he remembered how Shane had a pretty spiffy pipe gun that was a gift from his brother, which would put the 10mm pistol Ryan was using to shame. 

“Ricky, that house right there, at least before the war, had a pretty nice pipe gun that’s better than my 10mm.” Ryan said after stopping Ricky. “Can I go get it? It’ll give the rest of you time to rest.”

Ricky looked at the house, then to Francesca for an opinion. She nodded. 

“Jacob, Kelsey, go with him. Everyone else, we’ll take a short break so you all aren’t collapsing as we go through the city.” Ricky said. 

“Let’s go then.” Jacob said after walking up to Ryan and Kelsey.


	5. Shane's Holotape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan finds something Shane's house

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so short, but the time period between the last one and the next one is so short I can't make it longer without dragging it out

“Come on Shane, this place is nice. I don’t even have an office in my place.” Ryan has said when Shane first showed him the house.

“It’s only got one because it’s a two-bedroom house.” Shane said.

“Shane you have a good house in town, I know people who would literally kill you to get a house like this, especially in walking distance of the Buzzcast building.”

“Well it does have a wall safe and a terminal…” Shane sighed. “But I’d like a cellar.”

“Come on Shane, just sign up for one of the vaults already. I already sent in my application for 61. We have three in the area.”

“I am not signing up for vault 5, half the people I hate sent in applications and have been bragging about it. ‘Hey Shane I just got into vault 5, have fun not being prepared for the future!’ Vault 5 is out.” 

“Well there’s always 74 if you don’t get into 61.” Ryan said.

“I can’t believe we’ve gotten to the point that it’s a possibility that China’s going to nuke us into oblivion.”

“Well it’s not like we can do anything about it.”

Now, after over 200 years left to the mercy of the nuclear wastes, Ryan almost didn’t recognize the place. The coffee table had collapsed and was rotting away, the wallpaper had all but completely disintegrated, the couch was rotten everything was covered in dust. It was like no one had lived there for a long time.

“Where’s the pistol?” Kelsey asked.

“He mentioned keeping it in a wall safe, but I have no idea where it would be.” Ryan said, looking over at the terminal that was sitting on the table by the window. Ryan didn’t remember Shane mentioning moving it, but his office was a little stuffy and he probably got sick of it.

“Great…” Jacob muttered. “And it might not even be here.”

“Shut up Jacob!” Kelsey snapped. “Just look around for anything.”

Ryan went over to the terminal. He managed to hack into the terminal (Shane’s password wasn’t very strong anyway). There were a few sets of files. The first was some personal journal that was corrupted, the second was the Hot Daga script. Only 7 files were not corrupted. The third was emails Ryan had sent about the show, although most of them were corrupted. The final file was labeled ‘Quantum review’, and there was nothing written in it. He then noticed there was a holotape, and he ejected it.

“I found a holotape.” Ryan said.

“Might be a voice memo, could have a clue.” Jacob said as he looked under the couch like Ryan had meant to say floor safe.

Ryan put the tape into his Pip-Boy and began playing it.

“If you’re looking for the safe code, it’s 71-23-90, now if you’re about to start looking for the safe, it’s in the main bedroom.” It was Shane’s voice, but he sounded horrible. “Stop listening to this tape if you are,” Shane coughed hard. “Not one of the following..” 

Shane then listed the names of his friends and a few other people, including his parents, his brother, and Ryan, between coughs. 

“I’m probably going to die of radiation poisoning soon, so don’t try to look for me, heh. Ryan, you were right, should have sent in my application sooner. I hope you made it into the vault... I know we said we’d have the Nuka-Colas together but, at this point, I can’t drink anything… Too much radiation in the drinks and myself, Radaway hasn’t helped and I didn’t think to take the Rad-X I had when I saw the flash.” He coughed again. “Hope they had some in the vault, although if you’re hearing this I assume you didn’t get to the vault in time.” More coughing. “Mom, Dad, if you made the trek from Chicago to here, nice work, but I’m probably not going to be around for you to come find…”

Ryan couldn’t listen to the tape any longer, and pulled the tape out. He didn’t realize Kelsey and Jacob had both been listening and watching him, and all Ryan could do was slump his shoulders and shake so he didn’t start sobbing. 

“Ryan…” Kelsey said, but she didn’t try to get Ryan to turn around or anything.

“71-23-90.” Ryan said in a shaky voice. “In the main bedroom.”

Kelsey nodded to Jacob and they left the room. Ryan slowly sat down on the floor and hugged his knees to silently cry. He was left there for at least five minutes before Kelsey tapped his shoulder, and when Ryan turned, she held out Shane’s pipe gun. 

“Didn’t look like anything had been touched.” Kelsey said. “Everything else was ammunition and valuables that are worthless now.”

Ryan nodded and took the pistol.

“Let’s head out.” Jacob said.

The group was right where they left them, and once Ricky was told everything, he lead them towards Buzz-City. They could see the large building now, and it was in surprisingly good condition.

“I’m surprised it’s still standing.” Kesley said.

“All floors are accessible, although there have been a few collapses, those were fixed a while ago.” Francesca said. “How’s that pipe gun?”

“I don’t know yet. It’s pretty upgraded however.” Ryan held it up. It was lightweight, had a glowing sight, calibrated receiver, and quick eject mag, and Ryan assumed Shane’s brother got it through illegal means, but it wasn’t like the guy got arrested for it.

“Looks pretty spiffy.” Francesca said. “Probably will take a few people out.”

“A few?” 

“Shut up. It’ll take out people when you shoot them, that's all we need.”

Ryan chuckled. 

They started hearing gunshots. Ricky got behind a still-standing wall, and the rest of the group found cover as well.

“We have another rescue crew!” A raider yelled.

“Wipe them out.” Another said.

Ryan looked at C.C., who was close to him. She was looking towards her siblings and waiting, before making a signal to Ryan and the residents beside him. 

And then they began their assault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally closed the gap in the story and will be finishing chapter 7 real soon, so this story will have an ending!


	6. Assault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick leads the assault on Vault-City to save the people and their beloved radio host, and Ryan finally gets to meet the guy.

Ricky rushed in, climbing one of the makeshift guard posts that were there before, and taking out the raider in the post. Everyone else stuck back to shoot. 

Ryan got up to the wall, and a raider was right on him. Ryan shot him in the shoulder, and then a shot from behind the man killed him. Ryan only caught a glimpse of a man in a trench coat before the raider fell and the man was gone. Ryan was stunned for a second, before a bullet entering his left leg brought him back to the battle. 

Francesca lead everyone into the building, and Ryan was surprised to find the Lobby, despite being 200 years old and post-nuclear fallout, hadn’t changed very much. C.C., Jacob, and Ryan managed to get past the raiders, who were too busy shooting at the rest of the group, and slip into the room where a few prisoners were being held. 

C.C. took out the guard and they freed the prisoners, who were a few guards. 

“I’ll take the dead guy’s gun.” One of them said.

“We’ll go for the raider guys.” One of the others said.

“Ryan, find Ricky and start heading up, we can’t go up or they’ll kill the host.” C.C. said. “Jacob I need you here with me.”

“Got it Tinsley.” Jacob said

“I’m on it.” Ryan said. 

Ryan made it out with the other guards, who picked up guns and joined the fight. He found Kelsey and Ricky both making their way towards the stairwell and joined them.

“What’s the plan?” Ryan asked, as quietly as he could over gunfire.

“We head up to the 5th floor as fast as we fucking can. Kill anyone who gets in our way and maybe release some friendlies.” Ricky said. “Think you two can handle that?”

Kelsey shot a guy near the stairs, and then said

“After the last few days we’ve had, I think we can do a lot more than that.”

“Great, let’s go.”

The three made a break for the stairs and started heading up them. They ran into a few raiders on the way up, but took them out and made it to the third floor before they ran into a collapsed section.

“There’s an elevator down the hall that still works, it’ll get us up to the fifth floor. It’s not the only way up but it’s the closest.” Ricky said. “If you see anyone tied up, release them.”

“Got it.” Ryan said, and they set off again. Ryan ended up slipping into one of the bathrooms to find a couple of people who looked a little underweight. One of them had the collar of a vault suit sticking out from under their jacket. These must have been some of the dwellers from Vault 74.

“I thought no one would come for us.” One of them said.

“I don’t recognize you, did you buy that suit off someone?” One of the dwellers asked as Ryan cut them free.

“No, I’m from vault 64, it opened a few days ago.” Ryan said.

“Well, wish you could have had a warmer welcome like we did.” Another dweller said and there were a few chuckles.

“Can you guys fight or do you just want to stay here?” 

“Stay please…”

“Alright, when the firing stops it should be safe.”

“Thank you so much.” 

“You’re welcome.”

Ryan slipped back out, and caught up to Kelsey and Ricky, who had gotten to the elevator. 

“Going up.” Ricky said as he pressed the button and they went inside the elevator. 

They had to fight a few more raiders once they got to the fifth floor, and then they finally got to the radio room where Blade was.

“About time!” Blade said as Ricky, followed by Ryan and Kelsey, entered the radio room. Ryan noticed the bed and personal belongings around the room and assumed the host lived in the room. Speaking of the host, Blade had him tied up with a bag over his head and was holding him in front of her like a human (or ghoul) shield, which almost looked comedic because this ghoul had to be a full foot taller than her and she had him on his knees so he would actually cover her torso.

“Let him go Blade, it’s me you want, and I ain’t letting you have me if you’re going to play dirty.” Ricky said.

‘But I like to play dirty. Oh Ricky, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. And you seriously brought vault dwellers to this? Should have disobeyed me if you could only bring vault dwellers.”

“My crew is busy wiping out the rest of your goons Blade, it’s over.”

“It’s over when I say it’s over. Vault dwellers, do you really want to get involved in this? Did Ricky say he’d reward you?” 

“No, I just know scum when I see it and want it wiped from the face of the Earth.” Ryan said.

“Can the same be said for the lady?” 

“Yes.” Kelsey said without a second thought. “I didn’t fight my way up here just to turn back now.”

“So be it.” Blade turned her gun to the host. “So, who’s going to be the one to make me pull this trigger? Do you really want to leave Buzz-City without their beloved radio host?”

The host stayed still, which was probably from fear. He didn’t beg for his life or tell them to let her kill him. 

“What do you want?” Ricky asked.

“If you want the host to live, trade me one of those dwellers, I’ll kill them, and then we can fight.” Blade said. 

Ricky looked at Kelsey and Ryan, before grabbing Ryan in a way that kept him restrained.

“Alright, trade.”

“Ricky!” Kelsey yelled, but Ricky glared at her, and she stayed quiet. Ryan seemed surprised by the betrayal, but the sudden gun to his head kept him from protesting.

Ricky brought Ryan closer to Blade, and she forced the host onto his feet. Blade pushed the host forward, and Ricky pushed Ryan to Blade, who didn’t give him enough time to try and fight back before he had one of his arms between his shoulder blades. Ricky took the host back to where Kelsey was and said something to him, before throwing him into the recording booth, probably for his own safety.

Ryan felt the barrel of Blade’s pipe gun in his neck.

“Oh look who’s not the favorite. You feel betrayed vault dweller?” Blade hissed into Ryan’s ear. “Lesson one of the wastes, don’t trust nobody. Bet you thought Ricky had a soft spot for you, but he’s scum just like me.” She laughed.

“You’re exactly like Ricky said you’d be.” Ryan said, and Blade ignored him.

“Now what Blade?” Ricky asked.

“Now, I kill her.” Blade said, before taking his pistol off Ryan’s neck and pointing it at Kelsey.

“That wasn’t the agreement!” Ricky said.

“You trusted wrong! I’m taking your favorite!” Blade said.

Kelsey was seemingly frozen in fear.

“Now, I’ll give you a countdown, five, fo- ark!” Blade suddenly dropped her pistol and let Ryan’s arm free. Ryan ran back to Ricky and Kelsey, which revealed that Ricky’s knife was stabbed right into Blade’s side.

“Bastard!” She yelled at Ricky as she went for her gun. 

“You’re predictable Blade, very predictable. All I had to do was talk to people who witnessed your tactics.” Ricky said. 

Kelsey unfroze to shoot her in the leg as planned. They had set up the whole plan in the elevator.

Ricky rushed her, and she wasn’t prepared for it, and he took the blade out of her stomach and planted it in her neck and pulled her forward, letting her fall to the ground. He then shot her in the head.

“Fuck you Blade.” Ricky said, before flipping her over and taking his knife out of her neck.

“Jesus Christ…” Ryan said. 

“Ryan, help me with Mister M.” Ricky said, going over to the door. Once he opened it, Ryan and Ricky saw the host was face down, still tied up.

“Thanks, asshole.” The host said before either could speak. His raspy voice sounded just like it did on the radio. 

“Don’t mention it.” Ricky said as he got the host up into the sitting position and began cutting the ropes, which looked thick and tight. 

Ryan noticed how high the microphone was, and then he looked over at the window that looked out into the room. This was the room he and Shane had recorded all of the episodes of Unsolved in. It had looked a little familiar. Then Ryan noticed the pictures. Pictures attached to the window, pictures of coworkers and people Ryan didn’t recognize, but he noticed a few pictures were familiar. The one that hit the hardest was one of him and Shane that he knew he had in his house. He then noticed that most of the pictures had Shane in them. And then the one that hit him even harder than the one he thought was in his house. A picture of Shane’s cat. They hadn’t been allowed to attach anything to the window, so these had to be put there post-war.

“Thanks Rick…” The Host said, which made Ryan turn to look at the two. 

The ghoul took the bag off his head without help, and he looked like, well, a ghoul, although he still had a full head of hair, save for a few bald spots. The ghoul took his time giving Ricky a dirty look, before looking over at Ryan, and he almost looked like he had seen a ghost, and in a sense, Ryan was one.

“Ryan..?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna guess no one was surprised by the twist.


	7. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan reunites with an old friend

“I’m telling you, if Buzzcast goes through with making tv shows out of some of the radio shows, Unsolved would be a great one to do it. We could go out to the locations and we prove that you’re crazy.” Shane said as they left the studio.

“Do you really want to lug around all the equipment while hunting like the Mothman or something?” Ryan asked. “Unless recording cameras get a lot smaller that’s not happening.” 

“They should eventually. We’ve created portable nukes and a cannon to fire them out of, small portable movie cameras have to be next.” Shane said.

“They’re probably going to make that Chelsea show into a tv show, maybe the restaurant review one, your History show, stuff like that.” Ryan said while shrugging.

“Oh, you’re coming tomorrow right?” Shane asked.

“What?”

“To try Nuka-Cola Quantum. A friend of mine is going to hold two of the bottles for me so I’m definitely going to have some tomorrow.” 

“Oh yeah, I’ll be there.” 

“Great!” 

“See you at 10.” 

The next day, Shane had been sitting on his couch waiting for Ryan to come, the two bottles on the table in front of him. That was when the sirens went off. At first, Shane thought it was a drill, as Vault 5 had raised sirens as drills so the residents would make it in time for the real thing, and Shane had nowhere to go anyway, so he just went about his day.

That was until he heard the bomb hit, and before he knew it, he was on the ground in more pain that he had ever felt in his life, and then he was out.

He woke up feeling sicker than he ever had, but he was alive. He managed to get up, and look around him. His house was a mess. Shane dragged himself into the bathroom just in time to throw up in the toilet, and he did that a few more times, before dragging himself back into the living room to die. 

Death never came. 

After a day, he recorded the holotape, and then moved himself to his bed, just because he felt strong enough to do so.

He began to notice the changes as time went on. He only left home after the black rain fell. His house managed to survive the rain, and that was when Shane realized just how bad this all was. By then he felt better, but he was burned to a crisp, and some skin had started coming off. 

He managed to make it to Ryan’s home with what few belongings he brought, his holotapes, some clothes, pictures, and the nuka-colas. He found Ryan’s house collapsed, but the living room somewhat survived. Shane also found that Ryan’s car was gone, so he assumed Ryan made it to the vault. Shane could probably walk to the vault to check if it had closed, but he didn’t. He decided to take one of the photos Ryan had of the two of them. 

Shane thought about making the journey to Chicago to look for his parents, or maybe try to find his brother, but it was luck that Shane survived, and chances were Chicago was directly hit by a bomb, so there was no way his family survived.

Shane decided to head back to the Buzzcast building. When he made it, he found it was pretty intact, although the ‘ast’ had fallen off the sign. 

Shane stayed in the building, making small talk with the Mr. Handy units that still worked, until two more survivors appeared. By then, Shane, and the two who showed up were starting to look like ghouls. They were more Buzzcast employees, and Shane was happy to let them live with him.

After 20 years, a group of humans came. They found the Mr. Handys and the ghouls. At first the group weren’t keen on sharing the building with ghouls, but since they knew the building like the back of their hands and were more labor for turning it into a livable place, they were allowed to stay. As time went on and new generations were born or came, they began to become more accepting, and more ghouls were allowed in. Shane began using the radio as the town expanded outward to the surrounding buildings and gained its name to tell people they could come live in what was now Buzz-City and he began playing the holotapes for entertainment. It took him 20 years to begin airing episodes of Unsolved, and another 3 before he let the Hot Daga see the light of day, mostly because it made him cry every time he heard Ryan’s voice in each. He also began to pay people to get him Nuka-Cola, as he had already been getting paid for keeping the radio going, and he was just having caps pile up, as all he ever bought was food and the occasional nicknack. 

He never left Buzz-City. He was in no way made for the wasteland, and he had no reason to leave, although he did pay caps to anyone who would get him information on Vault 61, just so he knew the vault was still okay. He imagined Ryan living a full life in there, getting married, having kids, dying peacefully of old age. He did however leave the Quantum bottles unopened as he had been holding on to the hope that maybe Ryan would one day come out of the vault and they could try it together. He knew it would never happen, but he still never ended up trying Quantum.

The years went on, and while Shane hated watching the normal humans die out due to age (the worst was watching a kid who looked up to him like he was the coolest person ever die of old age while Shane stayed exactly the same), he loved making friends will people who lived in Buzz-City, plus he still had some other ghouls that became his friends. 

Once they had learned about the Synths escaping the Commonwealth, they took them in. They never had an incident, but that was likely because no Synths that were Institute had business outside the Commonwealth, at least not yet. 

They also took in any vault dwellers from Vault 74 when the vault opened up. The people had apparently only been living on water and grains for that entire time, and none of the dwellers looked very good. But after months and months with them, the dwellers became stronger and less sickly, although you could still tell them apart from the wastelanders and none of them were in any condition to leave the city.

The dwellers of Vault 74 scared Shane, because if Vault Tec did this to Vault 74, and if the stories from this woman from the Capital Wasteland about Vault 87, Vault 92, Vault 101, Vault 108, Vault 106 and Vault 112 were true, made Shane realize that Ryan was probably forced into one of these experiments. He could only hope that he had made it into a control vault, or due to the bombs dropping unexpectedly (some vaults weren’t even complete yet), that Vault 61’s experiment never started.

When Blade and her raiders showed up, they made themselves known pretty quickly, which was how Shane managed to keep giving information and calls for help to listeners before Blade got into the room and tied him up.

Shane had heard the gunshots as Ricky, his siblings, and the dwellers from Vault 61 began to take Buzz-City back, and then the all-out war that started. That was when Blade picked him up to use him as a shield, and Ricky, Ryan and Kesley came in. 

Now, Shane had Ryan in a hug he couldn’t escape, and Shane was practically sobbing into Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan understood, while it had only been a few days from Ryan’s perspective, Shane had to wait all 200+ years assuming Ryan died in the vault. Ryan had tears running down his face, and he just couldn’t believe it.

Ricky left the room to give them space, and Kelsey was in the doorway just watching them. She didn’t say anything and seemed to be there for moral support if either of them needed it.

“What did Vault Tec do to you?” Shane asked after his crying died down. He was still hugging Ryan as if letting him go would lead to him disintegrating or something.

“Nothing ba-”

“Bullshit, I heard what they did to the other vaults, what did they do to you?”

Ryan sighed.

“Cryogenically froze us and kept us stuck in loops of our memories. The whole time I was stuck reliving my whole career at Buzzcast with a few other things peppered in.”

“Why the fuck would they do that..?” Shane muttered, but he didn’t expect an answer.

“Vault Tec was fucked up.” Ricky interjected from the main room.

Shane rolled his eyes and let Ryan go. 

“I just can’t believe you’re still alive after all this time..” Ryan said.

“It’ll take more than a nuclear bomb to kill me.” Shane laughed, and they stood up off the ground.

“Oh, Shane, this is Kelsey, same story.” Ryan said. “Kelsey, Shane.”

“Kelsey! I heard nothing but good things about you before.” Shane said and shook her hand.

“I heard you were extremely annoying, but that was from Ryan so I don’t know how true that is.” Kelsey said, laughing a little.

“Of course he did.” Shane laughed.

“Oh, here’s that pipe pistol you had in your wall safe. We passed by your old place.” Ryan said, handing the pistol to Shane.

“Oh hell yes! Thank you! I’ve sent like 50 people over the years and they either run off with the caps, die, or just never find my house.” Shane chuckled, then realized. “Oh, I’m sorry about the Holotape, I honestly thought I was going to die at the time.”

“It’s fine! I understand. So, after this long, what do you think about ghosts?” Ryan asked.

“I got hit by a nuclear bomb, I wasn’t lobotomized.” Shane laughed. “They don’t exist.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hello everyone and I am happy to announce that Buzz-City has been saved, by the Marchbank siblings and some new faces, ten vault dwellers from the infamous Vault 61! These are the only survivors of the vault, and what they have said about it is shocking. Story goes that these dwellers entered the vault pre-war, and were put into cryostasis and forced to relive their memories until now! But now they are all safe here, and you may be thinking, hey Shane, wasn’t your friend Ryan one of the people who went into Vault 61? And the answer is yes! Infact, he and another familiar voice are among the survivors of Vault 61, Ryan, Kelsey, why don’t you say hi to the listeners?” Shane said into the microphone before baking up to let the other two crammed into the booth speak into the mike.

“Hello everyone!” Kelsey said.

“Hi!” Ryan said.

“Now everyone, you can send in questions for them or come meet them if you’d like, they are permanent residents and I’m sure you all will run into them around! Now, due to requests, we now play music in the morning! So this is Sixty-Minute Man by Billy Ward and His Dominoes.” Shane said before giving the woman at the control panel a thumbs up, and she pressed a button.

“It’s nice to be back in business.” Ryan chuckled as the three exited the room.

“I told Ricky and his siblings who you are.” Shane said. “Banjo’s really upset that he didn’t realize it sooner.”

“I mean we told him we were pre-war, and he knew we were from vault 61.” Kelsey laughed. She and Ryan were out of the vault suits and in more comfortable pre-war clothes. As comfortable as the suits turned out to be, neither of them wanted to wear them for the rest of their lives. 

“And I told him my first name!” Ryan said.

“Banjo’s not the smartest.” Shane chuckled.

“How’d the rest of them react?” 

“Ricky and Francesca weren’t surprised, but C.C. claimed she knew the whole time. Knowing C.C., it’s possible.” 

“So, what are the plans? We three could make new shows now.” Kelsey said. “We can’t do Unsolved anymore because, well, everything’s unsolved in the wasteland.”

“We could look into whatever Vault Tec was doing. Use information we have from vaults 61 and 74, we could even make the journey back to 61 and look around some more.” Ryan said.

“I think there was a Vault Tec office nearby. Oh, and we could attempt to see what’s going on with Vault 5 and those supermutants.” Kelsey said.

“No! There’s one rule here other than the basic no murder no steal and stuff, and it’s to stay the fuck away from Vault 5 and West Tek. Supermutants came out of there, and no one’s going near it.” Shane shook his head. “It’s the same thing that happened in Huntersville, West Virginia.”

“You’ve gotten people from West Virginia?”

“Vault 76 opened like 25 years after the Great War, and a lot of people here are descendants of those dwellers. West Tek was fucked up.”

“I remember West Tek, we did a whole episode on them and almost got sued remember?” Ryan chuckled.

“Oh yeah! Those guys were not happy. Of course they only had two weeks to be upset about it.” Shane laughed as well.

“I loved that episode.” The woman who had been at the desk said. She was putting on her coat. “I’ll be down at the market.” 

“Bye!” Shane waved as she left.

“So we can do Unsolved episodes about the mysteries of the wastes, and Kesley, we could make another show like the Adventures of Chelsea! People love the original, we could make it about a descendant of hers.”

“We could call her Kasey!” Kelsey exclaimed with a smile. “We could hire some our friends from 61 and other residents, it would be a good way to give some people jobs.” 

“That would be a great idea!” Shane said.

“I’m going to start drafting scripts!” Kelsey said before rushing out of the room.

“I wish we started working with her sooner.” Ryan chuckled. He looked back at Shane and saw him heading over to a shelf full of Nuka-Cola Quantum.

“Might be a little flat, but you still want to try one?” Shane asked as he pulled two off the shelf.

“I don’t know, Banjo said it makes your pee glow.” Ryan chuckled.

“That’s the tamest thing that could happen.” Shane chuckled as well.

“What the hell, let’s do it.” 

Shane and Ryan sat at the little table Shane had where there used to be a filing cabinet. They each twisted the cap off (and pocketed the cap) before Shane counted down from 3, and they both took long sips. 

“Oh god, you can, you can really taste the radiation.” Ryan said, coughing a little after putting it down. “Not trying that again…” 

“Not too bad.” Shane chuckled. “But that may just be the fact I’m immune to radiation.”

“Lucky you.” Ryan chuckled. “Seriously I might need a rad-away after that.”

“Then grab one, there’s a first aid kit in the bathroom!” Shane said before taking another drink to rub it in Ryan’s face.

“Ha ha, fuck you.” Ryan said before walking out, and Shane couldn’t keep from smiling.

It was like Ryan never left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking to this! I loved writing it!


End file.
